


Dispatches from Dreamspace

by beingheretoo



Category: Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal Series - J.M. Lee, The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Beginnings, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Missing Scenes, Obedience, Parenthood, Remedies for Homesickness, Sisters & Brothers, Spider Melancholia, The Common People of Thra, To Sea, Uncommon Situations, adapting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28143117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingheretoo/pseuds/beingheretoo
Summary: A few drabbles from weekly write-ins collected around a central theme and posted each week. Whenever I update, I'll add any new character tags and a tag for the theme of the week. Hopefully these will be good for a few minutes of distraction at least ;)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 21





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Another collection of drabbles based on prompts from weekly write-ins ;) The plan is to post 2-3 drabbles each Friday, all in one chapter under a common theme. For each drabble, I’ll give the prompt, the characters, and the setting.
> 
> I had the continuity of my continuation fic in mind when I wrote most of the drabbles set post-AoR, but they should stand alone. Just assume that some sort of Garthim Wars are going on in the background. Movie continuity is intact.

******

POTENTIAL  
 _Aughra, Raunip  
long before AoR_

Aughra, the first and only of her kind, gazed down at an incongruous rock. She had seen many rocks in her day, but never like this one that had fallen from the sky. What was to be done with it? She couldn’t ignore it. It was her job to sort out the pieces that made up the whole of Thra, and now this rock was one such piece. A piece of Thra, and yet a piece of something else. 

A puzzle. 

A possibility. That Aughra may be the first of her kind, but not the only. She raised a knarled hand, breathed a breath, and lifted a new life out of this unexpected rock. A piece of Thra, and of something else. She could hardly wait to meet him.

******

GROWTH  
 _urLii, Amri  
before AoR/before YA novels_

urLii did his best to ignore the tiny Gelfling. He unfolded an arm from his back and reached for a match to light a third candle, refusing to take his eyes off the book he was reading. _There. Much better light._

But although urLii was a creature of great placidity, who should have been able to keep his focus, the little fellow just kept _staring_ with those big black eyes. 

“Can I help you?” urLii asked at last. _Maybe I can give him what he wants and he’ll go away._

“Yes!” The Gelfling perked up. “Who are you? What are you reading? Can I read it? I read all of the books in Domrak already.”

“That’s a lot of books for such a tiny Gelfling.”

The Gelfling said nothing, but kept up his hopeful stare.

urLii sighed and waved him over. The Gelfling perked up from his crouching position and sprang over to urLii’s side, peeking at the book. “It is a history of the Age of Harmony,” said urLii. It was meant to be their first and only lesson, but the lessons never ended. 

“Are you all right?”

urLii blinked at the Gelfling who stood before him. He was not as tiny as he used to be. 

“I was just remembering something.”

“I know you’re busy,” said the not-so-tiny Gelfling. “But I need help with this potion. It smells… wrong.”

urLii walked over to his young pupil with a smile. Time for another lesson it seemed.

******

THE UNEXPECTED  
 _Rian, Gurjin_  
 _five trine before AoR_

Rian sat alone on a rock halfway between the castle and the shore. As a child visiting the castle, he had raced his father to this rock and back. It was one of their favorite tradtions. Now after his first official week as a castle guard, he had needed a private place to sit and think, and the rock had popped into his mind.

He stared at the shore, the castle at his back, and worried. Being a castle guard was different than when he had visited the castle as the son of the captain, and yet, he was beginning to realize, he now somehow had to be both. The other guards treated him differently, but at the same time, his father showed him no favor. If only one or both of those things wasn’t true…

SPLASH. 

Rian screamed in horror as his musings were interrupted by some sort of lake monster heaving itself onto the rock beside him. 

“Hey,” the lake monster said.

_Oh Thra, it’s just my roommate._ “Where did you come from?” Rian said. “I thought you were a lake monster.”

Gurjin pointed to his neck. “Gills. You didn’t know Drenchen have gills?”

“I did not know that,” Rian said neutrally, trying to catch his breath.

“Well, you should really try to learn about other people’s cultures before you go around calling them lake monsters.”

“Yeah.” _Great, now after everything else, I’ve insulted my new roommate._

After a moment or two of silence, Gurjin cleared his throat. “Actually, when I first met my friend Kylan—he’s a Spriton—I almost drowned him. I had no idea that other Gelfling _didn’t_ have gills.”

“Oh geez, was he okay?”

“Oh yeah, he was fine. Just fine. We’re still friends.” Gurjin threw a stone into the water. “Although I guess my old life is all behind me now. Everything here is so different from home.”

Rian considered it. While he didn’t know as much about being a guard as the others seemed to expect, he did know a lot about the castle, and his home in Stone-in-the-Wood was less than a day’s travel away. No matter how confused he was feeling right now, he couldn’t be feeling as lonely as Gurjin.

“Well,” Rian said. “You have one new friend here already.” He playfully punched Gurjin on the shoulder. “Just don’t try to drown me.”


	2. Sisters & Brothers

******

APOLOGY  
 _Smerth-Staba, Kira-Staba  
after AoR_

Easier to speak with each other than with the Podlings or the Gelfling or even Mother Aughra herself.

A Gelfling would need the words formed by vibration and air _I am sorry my sister._

Or the dreamfast, an image of clean crystal veins growing murky on their path north, and a pang of regret.

But his sister knew the shifts in the minerals that filled the soil, the chemicals flowing from through webs of mycelium, all the way from the low swamp to the snowy mountaintop. _Oxygen, carbon, nitrogen_ , different arragements of probability and spark.

So no need to waste extra energy in her precious last moments on vibration or memory. A simpler message than what the Gelfling would hear on the air as _I am sorry my sister, that I live while you die._

And a simple reply, like the words _None of this is of our choosing. Hang on to life, dear brother, and do not let go_ , but arranged in spark and soil.

The exchange continued in a gentle flow of elements, no longer like words of Gelfling, Podlings, Mother Aughra herself, but something akin to their nameless tunes. 

Until it ceased. 

And then there was no one left who would understand so well.

******

OBSTRUCTION  
 _Tavra, Brea  
after Flames of the Dark Crystal_

Tavra perched on the table, staring up at the dizzying heights of the Library, so much higher now that she was so much smaller.

Tavra startled as several sharp thuds reverberated through her new body, more sensitive to vibration than her old one. Leaving Onica to her book, Tavra scuttled over to the source of the sound, to find Brea tugging futilely on a door seemingly latched from the inside.

“You stupid door,” Brea shouted. She gave it one final tug, kicked it, and sank to the floor, a tear escaping her eye. 

Tavra knew it wasn’t really the door that Brea was upset about. Unfortunately, she couldn’t fix all the death and destruction of the past few months. But, she thought, eying a small opening between stones in the wall, she might be able to fix the door problem.

Tavra scuttled up the wall, startling Brea slightly. She easily squeezed herself through the crack. The room beyond was dim, lit only by moonlight, but her new eyes navigated the shadow well. She climbed up to the latch, caught one of her long arms on the bolt, and pulled. 

When Brea opened the door, Tavra gently scuttled up her arm and perched on her shoulder. For the first time since Tavra’s transformation, her younger sister smiled at her. With one spindly leg, Tavra wiped Brea’s tear and then scuttled off again.

******

HEALING WOUNDS  
 _Gurjin, Pemma_  
 _a few trine after AoR_

“See,” Pemma said, wiping the blood from her dagger, “I told you the two of us could handle one Darkened nebrie.”

“Naia’s going to be mad that we killed it,” Gurjin said. “She really wants to capture a specimen to see if we can cure it.”

“I love Naia, but if she wants to subdue a giant raging monster and drag it through the swamp for half a league, she can do it herself.”

“Yeah, well,” her brother said, struggling to tie a bandage around a gash on his right forearm. “I’m going to have to listen to an earful while she's healing this. Captive audience.”

“I wish I could heal it,” Pemma said. “I was never good at it though.” _Not like Naia and Eliona. They were already so much better than me and I never caught up._

“I was never good at it either,” said Gurjin, “until I had to be.”

It was true that amongst her few hazy memories of her brother before he had left for the castle was the fact that he had been terrible at dream-healing. So maybe if he had been able figure it out, she could too.

“You know how you, like, dreamfast with the wound and your mind kind of zooms in to see the tiny pieces that make up a person’s body?” she began. “The little blobs and lines and stuff? I can get to the part where I can see the lines and blobs, but I can’t get them to knit back together.”

“You know how I always do it?" Gurjin said, grabbing her hand and placing it on his wounded arm, “I concentrate really hard in my mind and say _Come on you stupid lines and blobs, knit back together._ ”

Pemma narrowed her eyes at him, but she didn’t take her hand off of the wound. “That’s not how Mom taught me.” 

“I’m completely serious,” he said. “Come on, don’t you want to spare me an earful from Naia?”

The stakes _were_ high. “Fine,” she said. 

_Hand to the wounded arm, like a dreamfast, but not quite._ The lines and blobs came into focus, and, mentally, she berated the heck out of them until they bent to her will. 

A minute later Pemma came out of the healing trance. Her brother smiled at her and swung his newly in tact arm back and forth from the elbow. 

“Let’s not tell Naia about the nebrie,” Pemma said.

“Good idea,” said Gurjin. He hopped up onto a low branch, helped his sister up, and the two of them took off through the canopy back towards Great Smerth.


	3. Remedies for Homesickness

******

HIDDEN AWAY  
_Amri, Deet  
a few trine after AoR_

“Boo.”

Amri jumped so high that he smacked his head on a low-hanging apeknot branch.

“Deet, what are you doing here?” He tried to reposition himself subtly so that he could hide his secret behind him without her noticing.

“Don’t ask me. I followed _you_. What are you doing sneaking off into the middle of the swamp?” She craned her neck to peer around him, unfooled. “I thought you had quit sneaking off in secret once you managed to get out of Domrak for good.”

 _I never wanted to get out of Domrak for good,_ he thought. He moved aside so Deet could see what was behind him. A small opening in the ridge of rock, one of the few hunks of rock in the swamp that was large enough to house…

“…a cave,” said Deet. 

“Just a small one.”

“So after all these trine, you’re sneaking back _into_ caves?”

“I just miss home sometimes, I guess. I always wanted to see the daylight world, but that’s different from never being able to go back home again. So sometimes I come here and sit for a little while.”

Deet peered inside, her keen eyes taking in the tunnel that opened into a cavern spotted with glow-moss. “Can I go in?” she asked.

The slight waver in her voice surprised him. As much as he wanted to keep his secret hideaway to himself, he realized for the first time that were others who probably needed it as much as he did.

“Yeah,” he said, with a wink. “My swamp-cave is your swamp-cave.”

******

WARMTH  
_Kylan, Onica  
a few trine after AoR_

“What about this one?” Onica asks.

The coat she holds up is simpler in style than the others in this shop, but it’s made out of a heavy gray brocade that seems less than functional.

“Looks too itchy,” Kylan says.

Onica puts the coat back on the rack. “That’s your way of saying _too Vapran_ , right?” she says in a low voice. But he just smiles in response and exits the shop.

“Maybe I don’t need a coat,” he says, wrapping his cloak around him to try to fend of the cold of the Ha’rar night. “The Skeksis won’t leave the city alone forever, and then we’ll have to flee to the desert. You don’t need a coat in the desert.”

“Well, let’s try to have a _little_ optimism,” says Onica. “We’ll try one more store.” She grabs his hand and leads him into a small shop.

He can tell this one is different from the start. Instead of frilly curtains and refined furniture for customers to rest on while being waited upon, the design is sparse, metal racks with clothing and not much else. Behind the counter is a Vapra, but next to him is a brown-haired man dressed in clothes with a Stonewood crest. Kylan glances at the Stonewood, as he always does, trying to match the features on the face to faint memories of his father’s. But there is no obvious connection.

Kylan is drawn to a coat on one of the racks, something about the smell of the fabric is familiar. He reaches out to touch it, when Onica calls out to one of the shopkeepers.

“Haron?”

The Vapra turns around. “Onica! I have a shop in Ha’rar now.”

“I see that,” she laughs. “Kylan, this is Haron. We used to sail together.”

“Don’t let the Vapran features fool you,” says Haron with a wink. “I’m a Sifa now, through and through.” He runs a hand over the coat Kylan has been looking at. “The wool for this one came all the way from the Plains,” he says, then nods towards the Stonewood. “But Anli did the design.”

“A bit of Stonewood touches,” says Anli. “Can’t help myself. But a few from the Sifa and Vapra as well. We’re all one clan now, right?”

Kylan smiles. “Yeah.”

A short while later, Kylan and Onica exit the shop, and she walks him back home to the Citadel. Kylan pulls the coat tight around him, warm in the cold Ha’rar night.

******

HOT CHOCOLATE  
_Brea  
about 15 trine after AoR_

In the dim candlelight, Brea puts down her pen and closes her journal, only to look up into a pair of luminious eyes staring at her from the shadows. Startled, she flutters a few inches out of her chair before realizing, mid-air, that they belong to her son. 

“Oh Thra, you scared me,” she says. In her defense, while he _is_ very small, he is also always so very quiet. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “It’s too cold.”

“ _Cold?_ ” she asks. It’s one of those rare nights in the swamp at the height of the rainy season where the temperature is not unbearably hot, but it is, in her opinion, still very far from _cold_. Clearly he has not inherited her Vapran preference for snowier climates. _Just as well_ , she supposes, _if he’s going to live out his life in this sweltering swamp._

Swamp aside, thoughts of her old home have unlodged an idea. “Come on,” she says, leading him to the hearth. “I’ll make you something.”

A few minutes later, she places a cup on the table in front of him. “I used to drink this all the time when I was little,” she says. “Be careful, it’s a little hot.”

“You drank this in Ha’rar?” he asks, before taking a cautious sip. 

“In Ha’rar,” she confirms. “It was high up in the mountains and snowed constantly in the cold season. We used to drink this to keep warm.”

“I’d like to see snow,” he says quietly, looking into his cup. “I wish we could visit.” 

“You were supposed to be born there,” Brea says, before realizing she has let a little too much sadness into her voice. He will pick up on it of course; he always does. _Ah well_ , she thinks. _At least it’s an honest feeling_. With her mother and sisters there had always been too much that they kept hidden from each other. 

Her son puts down his empty cup and climbs onto her lap. “Can you show it to me?” he asks.

The swamp is so far from Ha’rar. But on this night, the rain failling in sheets through the canopy, she can almost feel a chillness on the breeze. “Yes,” she says, “I think this is a good night for it.” 

She places her hand to his small one, and in an instant they are standing on the blinding white mountainside overlooking the city as the Great Sun rises into full morning. As Brea’s small self in the memory sips the warm drink in her hand, both her grown self and her son taste it too, and together they watch the merchants open their shops, the children rush to school, the entire city come alive.


	4. Parenthood

******

SLOW AND HEAVY  
 _Naia, Gurjin  
several trine after AoR_

“Oh my Thra,” her stupid brother said. “Can’t you go _any_ faster?”

Naia paused, each hand wrapped around a vine as she delicately navigated her way through the apewood branches. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot you were an expert on moving quickly when you have an _entire other person_ inside of you.”

“It’s only one entire other person, Naia,” he replied, flipping himself casually over branch so that he hung upside down in front of her, as if to taunt her with his mobility. “How hard can it be?”

“What do yo mean _only one_ , that’s still more than you ever…” She blanched. “Oh Thra,” she said in whisper, “what if it’s not just one?” She scowled at her brother. “If you just tempted fate into turning this into twins, so help me…”

“I thought it was fun being a twin,” he said with a pouty face.

“ _Not right now it isn’t._ ” 

Gurjin flipped back down from the branch, landing nimbly. She didn’t resent him for being free right now, his body completely his own, but did he have to rub it in her face? “How come I have to go through this crap and you never ever have to?”

“I dunno, you’re the maudra, you tell me,” he said with a wink.

She pushed him into the water. But as his words sunk in, she regretted it a little.

He surfaced. “Sorry,” he said, treading water. “I was being a jerk.”

She jumped into the water beside him, and tried to ignore the outlandish size of her splash. “Here,” she said. “Now we’re better matched. Try to keep up with me now.”

He had never beaten her in a race before he left for the castle, even before her wings had grown in. But many trine had passed since he had first left for the castle, and ever since he had come home, even before her current state, he had beaten her more often than not. Now he pulled ahead easily. 

When she made it back to the base of Great Smerth, he was waiting to help pull her up out of the water. “See?” he said. “I told you you could go faster.”

She couldn’t decide whether to pound him or to smile, but she ultimately chose the latter. “All right, fine,” she said. “It’s not that bad being a twin, I guess.”

******

BLOOD TIES  
 _Amri  
a few weeks after the above_

The Drenchen paid little to no attention to him at first. In fact, he and Naia had been sharing a room for a couple of trine before anyone really noticed that the random Grottan helping develop weapons against the Garthim was, you know, always showing up at breakfast in the Great Hall with their maudra. It wasn’t until she was noticeably expecting their first child that they began to acknowledge him as part of the maudren.

Which was fine. He wasn’t with Naia because she was a maudra. It was more of a _despite_ situation. So the lack of attention all these trine had been for the best, had given their relationship room to breathe and grow. And he had been accepted when the time had come, warmly enough. But the reality of the situation was that _she_ wasn’t the random Grottan’s wife, _he_ was the maudra’s husband.

Now, after what seemed like hours of pacing the floor with his tiny daughter, exhaustedly praying that she would go back to sleep, he looked down at the (at long last) quiet bundle in his arms. But she wasn’t asleep. She gazed up at him, and their eyes locked, seeing each other clearly even in the darkest hours of the night. 

To the rest of the world, she might be the future Drenchen maudra, but in that moment, and forever, she was his daughter. _My family is my family_ , he thought, carefully holding her up in front of him so that their eyes were level. Once again, she shifted her gaze to meet his. _And what the rest of the world calls us doesn’t matter one bit._

******

TRUST  
 _Mera, Kylan, Brea_  
 _about ten trine after AoR_

As the meeting draws to a close, Brea begins to jot down a memo, when the pencil snaps in half in her hand. Again. She winces once, then sighs. She puts the top half in her pocket and begins writing with the stub.

Mera opens her mouth to speak but closes it before Brea can see. She excuses herself, leaving Brea alone in the room. When she gets to end of the hallway, she almost turns left, down the ramp that leads out of the Great Smerth, but, at the last minute, she turns right. 

She knocks on the door firmly, three times. When Kylan opens it, she watches his expression melt from neutral into a slight frown. 

“I know you don't want to talk to me,” she says. Now that she sees the frown on his face, she begins to think this is a mistake. “Actually, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”

“What is it?” he says, before she can turn away.

Mera doesn’t meet his eye. “Tell your wife that arla leaf helps with the muscle spasms,” she says, turning to leave once again.

“What?”

_Oh Thra, he doesn’t get it._ “Look,” says Mera. “Maybe she has all of this figured out, or maybe one of the older Vapran women has been helping her with it, but seeing as she broke four pencils in the course of an hour-long meeting, I thought she might need some help.”

“Oh,” he says, figuring it out at last. “Well, there’s Naia…”

“Naia’s just barely been through the same thing herself. And the Drenchen have it easier than most.” Mera shakes her head. _This isn’t going to work._ Well, she’ll give it one more try and then consider it done. “Brea just seems confused, and I want to offer her my help, but I know you don’t trust me, so I thought I’d ask you first.”

“It’s up to her,” he replies through his frown. “If she trusts you or not.”

“But _I’m_ not okay with it unless you are.”

She can read the expressions on his face fairly well, although she’s never completely mastered it. But she can read his doubt now, and she knows that the two of them have never seen eye-to-eye about the decisions she had been forced to make during his childhood. _This was a bad idea._ She is about to say as much, when he looks up at her with his gentle smile.

“It’s up to her,” he says again. “If she’s fine with it, then so am I.”

A few minutes later, Mera re-enters the meeting room, to find Brea still writing notes. Her hand scrapes against the paper, and she frustratedly throws the pencil stub to the floor.

Mera picks up the pencil and places it back on the table. “Arla root will help with the muscle spasms,” she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a heavier theme planned for this week but decided to switch to something lighter instead ;)


	5. Obedience

******

COMMAND and DISGUISE YOURSELF  
 _Seladon, Mayrin  
before AoR_

Mother had said to meet her in the throne room after breakfast, but Mother was late. No doubt something urgent had come up.

So Seladon stood alone in the throne room on a rare morning flooded with the light of all three suns. The beams—yellow, red, red-violet—shot through the windows and bounced off floor and ceiling, a feast of warmth and radiance.

The abundance of light was too much to resist. Seladon raised her arms in front of her, palms out, as she had practiced so many times before. She let the light fill her eyes until they glazed over and she went into the trance, like a dreamfast, but not. When three guards came into the room without so much as as a glance in her direction, she knew she had succeeded.

Giggling, she twirled in a circle around the throne room, unseen by guards or the passersby in the hall. She spun her way to the throne and leapt upon it, feeling the light go through her instead of bouncing off, her small form invisible to all. Every once and again one guard would look at the other, as if deciding whether or not to ask his fellow if she heard the phantom laughter.

Seladon stopped, mid-giggle, however, when Mother entered the room. Mother would not be fooled. She hurried to get down from the throne before Mother sat down, and, in her rush, stumbled onto the floor with a noticeable thud.

The guards startled, but Mother never flinched. “Seladon,” she began, “the Vapra have moved past the age of magic and trickery that gave us the dream-shadow.”

Seladon allowed herself to flicker back into view. “Trickery? But mother…”

“That’s enough Seladon. I forbid it.”

In her ten trine of life, Seladon had already learned to suppress her desires to the demands of the throne. This command was no different from any other. But it was hard. Perhaps she could be more careful, practice in her room, in secret. 

But one look at Mother’s face and she knew she would never get away with it. It was best to forget all about it.

The first of the peasants was brought in with their petition for the All-Maudra. Seladon stood quietly by her mother’s side, learning her duty. The morning wore on, the Dying Sun set, and the triple light of the Suns faded into a less bright sky.

******

LOYALTY  
 _Ordon  
during AoR_

When the Lords told him his son was a murderer, he didn’t even think twice. Surely there would be an explanation, and there was. His son was ill. That made sense. Best to find him and bring him back to the Lords as soon as possible. Their wisdom was his son’s only hope.

His next step, of course, was to go to Maudra Fara. She listened patiently, with full understanding. The young woman she had been had grown up wisely, as to be expected from a maudra. When Rian, at last, stood before Fara’s throne, Ordon was relieved. Surely this whole ordeal would be behind them shortly. 

But his son’s illness was even more severe than he had imagined. Still, Ordon had many trine over the boy, and despite the latter’s escape, tracking him down after his flight from Stone-in-the-Wood was not too difficult. 

When he first entered the Podling tavern, his heart stopped for a moment. _I’m too late_. Rian stood dreamfasting with three others, the disease in his son’s mind sure to spread now. _I have failed the Lords_ , he thought. _And my son. Now his crime is that much greater._

But his eye caught a flash of silver. One of the Gelfling dreamfasting with Rian was Vapran—and dressed as a paladin at that. The All-Maudra had already been informed of the situation with his son—surely one of her own soldiers would be wary of dreamfasting with him.

He turned back to Rian. This time he looked at his son—really looked at him. He saw the castle guard—careless but full of joy and laughter. And he saw the boy who practiced with a wooden sword behind their home at Stone-in-the-Wood, happy to do anything that let him spend time with his father. And before that, the infant who had brought such happiness to his mother’s eyes.

Everything clicked in that instant. He pushed the Lords out of his mind, and the All-Maudra, and even Fara too, and placed his hand to his son’s.

******

INK  
 _Tavra, Onica, Tae_  
 _a few trine before AoR_

“My mother will kill me,” said Tavra, standing outside of a shop on the docks in Cera-Na. “Just, unceremoniously have me tossed into a pit of gobbles.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Onica replied. “She’ll disinherit you at worst.” 

“It’s not worth the trouble,” Tavra said. She peeked inside the shop window. The woman behind the counter looked Dousan by birth, but she wore Sifan clothing. 

“Look,” said Tae. “Every time you see a Sifa with a tattoo, you say _Hmm, interesting._ Every single time, Tavra.”

“And,” said Onica, “you already tore that page out of that book. How old was that book, Tavra?”

Tavra looked down at the page in her hand, a detailed drawing of a unamoth emerging from a chrysalis. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I was just going to stuff it back in when I was done. Nobody reads all those books anyway.” 

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” said Onica. “But you’ve been dreaming about it for ages.”

“Well...” said Tavra.

“Oh for the love of Thra,” said Tae. “You’re getting it under your wings where literally no one will ever see it unless you go flying around Ha’rar half-naked. Or fully naked. Now let’s go.” With that, she grabbed Tavra’s hand and yanked her into the shop.

Two days later, Tavra sailed back to Ha’rar, where she debriefed her mother on the news from Cera-Na. She kept her face straight, but inwardly smiled whenever her wing happened to brush against the bandage discreetly hidden on her lower back.


	6. Spider Melancholia

******

TARGET  
 _Arathim Ascendancy, Unnamed Threader, Tavra  
during AoR_

The instance of _us_ pays no mind to the frightened whispers of the soft, hairy mammals, nor to the deep cackles of the dry, fragile birds. The instance obeys us, scuttles on swift spindly legs up its designated path, up the restrained left arm of its target.

The target does not whisper or whimper, but their eyes grow large, _its_ eyes grow large (the mammals are not instances, each is one) and its ears tilt back as the instance buries itself in its long silver hair (so much hair, these mammals) and wraps its legs around neck, lips, cheekbone (the large eyes mean _fear_ , and so do the tilted ears).

For each instance of us, there is a first time, a first connection, but we are one, so we share it, compare the new sensations to thousands of sensations we have felt before, and the process executes itself flawlessly every time. _But_

Perhaps it is because the target’s will is particularly strong for a mammal. Perhaps it is a quirk of this instance, heretofore undetected. Perhaps it is both. _But_ this time, the only time, the instance is shaken as the target’s words echo through their newly shared mind. _Leave me alone._

 _Me_. The instance flinches at the word and pushes back at the concept. To do otherwise would be poison, poison to the instance, to the whole network. And yet, in a corner of the matter that fills this instance’s mind, something sparks. 

_**I** am doing this. **I** am doing this to another **I**_.

But we have done this thousands of times. We flood the novice instance with wave after wave: sparks of thought, emotion, memory. The aberration of thought fades quickly enough. 

The target is integrated, the plan is set. We pull its cloak tightly around its awkward upright body, and walk it out of the castle gates into the night. When the target’s eyes see the other mammals in the forest, there is not the least spark of recognition, the least thought of _I_. 

We execute the plan, flawlessly.

******

GENTLE  
 _Seladon, Tavra  
during AoR_

Seladon has countless memories of her sister riding high on a landstrider, sword in hand. She has just as many of her sister slinging bola and hurling spears. And she has the very recent memory of her sister dueling a Lord of the Crystal, three times her size, and holding her own. 

But she does not choose any of those.

She has countless memories of Tavra sitting quietly on the edge of an argument, waiting to be called in, defusing the tension with a few calm words. She has just as many of herself, upset by a mistake she had made or frightened by a nightmare, running not to her mother for comfort, as things would work in a normal family, but to her younger sister instead. 

The memory she settles on then, is one of Tavra on a landstrider, but without a sword, chasing a member of the herd, a juvenile, that has become frightened by a peal of thunder and run headlong towards the town below. Paladins follow with spears and bolas, ready to take it down before it can do any damage. But Tavra is faster. She leaps out of the saddle, flutters through the air, and lands gently on the frightened landstrider’s back. A few quietly-whispered words, a few reassuring pats, and the creature calms.

“Have you decided?” Maudra Fara’s voice draws Seladon back into the current moment. There are only a few hours until dawn. They must return Tavra to Thra, and do it quickly. 

“I have,” Seladon replies, her voice small, her dress torn and stained with blood. 

Seladon takes her place in the circle as head mourner, raising one hand to Brea and the other to Fara. She takes a breath, enters the dreamfast, and here on a dark night in the Dark Wood, the memory of her gentle sister lives.

******

DANCING LIGHTS  
 _Tavra, Unnamed Threader_  
 _a few trine after AoR_

The Silver Sea on a moonless night, ten thousand stars sparkling double across soft ripples of darkest water. 

This spot atop the tallest mast has become Tavra’s favorite spot, here between the stars and the sea, which is nothing more than a mirrored sky. It is the farthest she can get from the cold dirt, rock, soil of Thra that call to her in her new form.

But it’s not fair to the Threader whose body she shares, who, unlike her, was made to bury herself in those deep places. The Threader does her best—she still sees their shared form as a kind of penance for what the Arathim did to Tavra. But even her individual intent is against her nature. 

It is not sustainable, Tavra knows. And the Threader has given her more than enough time with her loved ones after her first death. But Tavra is not ready to face those thoughts today.

Besides, there are clouds on the horizon. Soon enough, the stars will be covered and the sea as black as the earthy depths of Thra. And then, for a few hours at least, towering in the mast above the starless sea, the two of them will find what shared peace they can.


	7. Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two this week, but their word counts are pushing the limits of "drabble" territory anyway. Also they have ice cream on Thra now ;)

******

SUGAR AND SPICE  
_Rian, Deet  
a few trine after AoR_

Deet reached their cottage just after dark, exhausted and covered in mud after a long day of checking the crystal veins on the northern edge of the swamp. _Their_ cottage. Hers and Rian’s. Their very own, at last.

So she was mildly alarmed when she entered only to find herself in a cloud of black smoke. Rian stood beside the stove, frantically juggling a wooden spoon and a jar of spices. His face was more serious than the situation called for, which she always found endearing, but she knew it might mean that he needed to be talked down a little. “What are you making?” she asked lightly.

“I thought I’d make supper,” he said. “It’s supposed to be wild nebrie pie.”

Deet blinked as Rian poured a large handful of white powder into the mixture. “Is it supposed to have so much sugar?” she asked.

“I…” he sighed. “Now that I think about it, probably it was supposed to be salt?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” said Deet, gazing into the pot of filling.

“I’m just kind of going from memory of how I’ve seen other people make it before,” Rian began, “but I don’t really know what I’m doing.” He poured the filling into a pan lined with a lumpty-looking crust. It only filled the pan about halfway. “Look at this,” he said. “It’s a mess.”

“It’s not a big deal, Rian,” said Deet. “We can just go to the Great Hall and…”

Rian dropped the spoon with a clatter, with an intense look on his face that did not quite match the checkered apron that he wore. “I know we’re lucky,” he began, “that I have my mom and brother and sister and you have your dads and your brother, and that we’re all alive and together. I know that’s more than a lot of people have right now.”

Deet placed an arm on his shoulder. “We are.” _Where is he going with this?_

“But if we’re going to build a life together, just the two of us, we can’t rely on them to feed us dinner every night. And we can’t eat with them and everyone else in the swamp in the Great Hall all the time either. I just thought…”

Deet picked up the wooden spoon, dipped it in the piping hot pie-filling, blew on it a few times, and took a taste. Her eyes widened. “Actually, it’s delicious,” she said.

“You don’t have to make me feel…”

“No, it is, taste it,” she said, sticking the spoon in his mouth. Mouth full of spoon, his face transitioned slowly from regular surprise to surprised approval. “It’s not bad,” he said around the spoon. 

“It just looks a little funny,” said Deet. “But that’s not what matters, now is it?” Deet removed the spoon from his mouth and kissed him in one quick movement.

“No,” he said. “It’s not what matters.”

******

SAFETY FIRST  
 _Seladon, Tavra, Brea_  
 _before AoR_

“Brea, get down from that _cliff_.”

Seladon endured all of the duties that Mother tasked her with, but babysitting was the worst. 

“She’s fine,” Tavra said. Tavra was the one who insisted that they come down to the beach in the first place, and for some reason Seladon had given in. _Some reason_ being that even if Seladon had said no, Tavra would have stubbornly gone off by herself anyway. 

“Tavra, she’s _eight_. She doesn’t have wings yet. What if she falls?”

“I’ll catch her,” Tavra said, not looking up from the piece of driftwood she was now whittling into a sword. With a knife. Seladon was not happy about the knife either, but Mother had allowed it.

“Oh yes,” Seladon replied, “and you’ve had wings for one whole month now, surely you’re able to go around snatching falling children out of the air.”

“All right, then,” said Tavra, taking a couple of swipes with her halfway-carved sword in the general direction of the sea, “you can catch her.”

SPLASH.

“Now she’s in the ocean,” said Seladon, frantically gesturing at the sea. “Mother will never forgive us for letting her in the ocean.”

Tavra squinted at Brea’s flailing form frolicking amongst the waves. “I don’t know, she seems to be swimming well enough.”

 _Seems. Seems to be swimming._ “Oh for the love of Thra,” Seladon said as she scaled up the nearby cliffside and launched herself into the air. She fluttered over to Brea, did not bother to assess whether her tiny sister’s swimming skills _seemed_ to be holding in the briny deep, grabbed her by the collar, and flew them both back to shore. 

Seladon unceremoniously dropped Brea into the sand, which proceeded to coat every inch of the latter: feet, dress, hair. 

“Well, there’ll be no hiding this from Mother at this point,” said Tavra, looking down at sea-tousled Brea. Seladon glowered. 

Brea lay on her back catching her breath after her brief adventure at sea. Seladon hoped that her youngest sister had learned her lesson, and when at last Brea opened her mouth to speak, Seladon awaited her words of remorse and contrition.

“Tavra can I try your knife?” Brea asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Tavra said with a shrug, offering it to her.

But before the transfer could be completed, Seladon’s hand thrust out in between them and snatched up the knife.

“No. No knives for childlings of eight trine,” she said, “and no knives for alleged _young women_ of twelve who would give knives to childlings.” Brea and Tavra looked at her in shock. “And no pointy sticks either,” Seladon said, confiscating Tavra’s driftwood sword.

The three of them stood in silence for half a minute, during which Tavra’s look of shock transformed into a grumpy scowl and Brea’s into a frown accompanied by thinly-veiled tears. _Oh for the love of Thra what did they expect?_

Seladon felt the cold steel of the knife and the warmth of the sun-warmed driftwood that she clutched to her chest. She breathed in and breathed out. “Who wants ice cream?” she asked. 

Tavra’s scowl evaporated, Brea’s tears disappeared. “Can I get two scoops?” Brea asked from her position splayed out on the shore, covered in salt water and sand. 

“Yes,” said Seladon. Two scoops would mean that Brea would be even more wound up than usual tonight. But she’d be Mother’s problem then. “Let’s go.”


	8. Missing Scenes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first one this week was my first write-in drabble ever, from back when I was adorably trying to keep to the word limit. I think the terseness mostly results in Rian manifesting as Angry Teenager Rian from the YA novels instead of slightly mellower (but still angsty) TV Show Rian ;)

******

COMFORT  
 _Rian, Gurjin  
immediately after AoR_

Rian stood before Maudra Fara’s newly-hewn grave, scowling. He knew he should probably be feeling sad but mostly he was pissed off. 

“Hey.” Rian recognized Gurjin’s voice but didn’t turn his head.

“Hey,” he said, continuing to scowl.

They stood in silence for a moment before Gurjin tentatively started again. “So, how are you feeling about…”

“This sucks,” said Rian.

“Yeah,” said Gurjin, nodding. “Do you need to say more or is that…”

“It sucks. My dad died and Mira died and so many other people died and Deet… I don’t even know what happened to Deet, and just, like, also my maudra is dead. Why not?”

“Yeah, but we found the crystal shard.”

“Well, it’s not going to make everyone less dead.”

“Might help Deet though.”

Rian took a deep breath and held it. “Fine,” he said. His mouth went back into a frown but it was less scowly. 

“So,” said Gurjin, “do you want to go back and strategize with everyone, or stay here a little longer?”

“Stay here a little longer.”

“Got it. And I should…?”

“Also stay here a little longer.”

Together they waited for Rian’s frown to turn into a sigh, and then headed back to join the others.

******

WITHOUT WARNING  
 _Onica, Ethri  
immediately after AoR_

Scores of Gelfling from seven clans celebrated together around the Crucible at Stone-in-the-Wood. Onica couldn’t help but crack a small grin, even as she tried very hard to pay attention to the Stonewood Elder before her. Meeting with the other Elders could be boring, but there was, apparently, a price to be paid for bashing people in the head with teapots. So now she had to go to these meetings in Cadia’s place.

“Then that’s settled,” said the Stonewood Elder.

“Yes,” said Onica. “The Sifa will welcome your representative at our next Council of Elders.” Over his shoulder, a flash of silver caught her eye, but it wasn’t the one she was looking for. _Seladon._ And Brea with her. The two of them sat around a campfire with a handful of women, Ethri among them.

“What’s that meeting over there?” Onica asked the Stonewood.

“Oh, that’s just for maudras and heirs.”

“Why is Princess Brea there, then?” Onica asked. “Where’s Princess Tavra?”

“Ah,” said the Stonewood Elder. “I believe the Princess Tavra heroically returned to Thra during the escape from the castle.”

“No, she didn’t,” said Onica automatically. Her voice was firm but her mind ran off in a thousand directions. _I haven’t seen her since we got here she would have been in the center of the battle against the Skeksis she would have been celebrating with Brea when the shard was found she would be by Seladon’s side now but how could I not know…_

Onica abruptly parted with the Stonewood and walked in a daze of thoughts towards her maudra and friend. “Ethri,” she said. “Who is this meeting for?”

Ethri heard the waver in her voice and her eye widened in shock. She took Onica aside. “Oh, Thra, Onica, you don’t know?”

With Ethri’s words, the weight of the truth fell upon her. Tavra was gone, and Onica hadn’t been there. She hadn’t even seen it coming.

 _Wait. How did I not see it coming?_

Onica didn’t claim to know everything about the future, but she _was_ a soothsayer, and for major events in her life, she always had some intimation beforehand. But she had felt no such premonition, had read no sign that the woman she cared about more than any other would soon be dead. 

Which could only mean one thing.

Tavra wasn’t really dead.

******

PROGRESS  
 _Naia, Gurjin, Kylan_  
 _during AoR_

At no point in the planning process had Naia considered that the hardest part would come _after_ they escaped the castle.

But now her brother lies on a bed of dead leaves on the edge of the Endless Forest, where the trees are too sparse to give them cover. She’s afraid if they don’t move they will be caught by the Skeksis or the castle guard or a wandering patrol who still believe the lies of the Lords of the Crystal. But she’s more afraid that if she moves her brother, he will die.

Every now and then he speaks. _Naia?_ he asks, then pushes her hands away. _Naia I’m fine, I’m fine._ But he is clearly not really seeing her and clearly not really fine. She goes in and out of the healing trance, trying to find the source of his fever as quickly as possible. She knows that there must be an infection but _where…_

_Naia, I’m fine._

“You’re not _fine_ ,” she yells in frustration, grabbing his hands to keep them from pushing hers away.

“Naia.” Kylan this time. He has been palely watching her work, holding on to Gurjin as best as possible in an attempt to keep the larger man from thrashing too much. “His back.” He holds up one of his hands, smudged with blood.

She forces her training as a healer to push away the panic rising in her belly. Together with Kylan she gently flips Gurjin over onto his stomach. The wounds on his back are covered in blood, both old and dried and new and bright. She gently removes a dried leaf from the wound, then removes her dagger and cuts away his jacket, his shirt, his undershirt. 

She has been healing the two gaping wounds for several minutes when he finally speaks again.

“Naia,” he says, his voice as dry as the crumpled brown leaves beneath his body, beneath her knees, “It hurts.”

 _Well_ , she thinks, _that’s progress at least_. She returns to her task, and prays that they will make it into the Forest before the first moon rises over the horizon.


	9. The Common People of Thra

******

DETERMINATION  
 _Unnamed Vapran Farmer  
a few trine after AoR_

She had been a farmer her whole life, and she knew well that too much water was just as bad as not enough. But that had been their choice—the Wellspring or Sog. Their farm was too far from Ha’rar to be protected from the terrible Garthim monsters by the new fortifications, and besides, the land had become so blighted that almost nothing grew anymore anyway. So they had chosen too much water over too little, packed their bags, and boarded a Sifan ship for the south.

It had been hard. The southern climate was hot for a Vapra—the moisture in the air stuck to her skin, mixed with the sweat on her neck, and she felt like she could never get dry. And it was too wet to grow crops the old way—crops that were necessary beyond what grew in the wild now that the population of Sog had swelled with refugees. So new ways had to be devised. They just hadn’t quite figured out what those new ways were. Right now she was working on a kind of trough that could be hung from the branches of one of the great apewoods and filled with soil for planting.

She wanted to do her part for the Resistance. She had supported it from the start. Her suspicions of the Lords had begun when they had demanded her necklace—what could such beings need with a Gelfling heirloom when they had a castle full of treasures? And when the necklace had been mysteriously returned, it seemed all the more like a sign—that it was not only acceptable to question the Lords’ rulings, but that it was a good thing too.

But she was not a soldier and never would be. She was a farmer, and would have to support the Resistance that way. She wiped the sweat off her neck, picked up a spade, and began to fill the trough with soil.

******

ROYALTY  
 _Aughra, Jen, Kira  
some time after AoR_

Aughra watches a busy colony of beetles scurry up and down vines wrapped around an old apewood tree, a burst of life in a renewed Thra. Nearby, the two young Gelfling stand entranced before a moss-ridden memorial stone, reading the dream-stitched memories of the dead. 

The memorials she has directed them to are for two women long gone, but Aughra’s memory is long too, and these days mostly whole, and she has read in the blood of the two surviving Gelfling descent from them, among others. Others who have no stones.

“So we’re both descended from… queens?” asks Jen, when he and Kira emerge from the trance. 

_That’s what he took away from this?_ “From queens, yes,” Aughra replies. “But also a whole bunch of peasants. What about them, eh? Don’t you care about them?”

“Of course,” says Kira. But her eyes drift back to the stone. “Did they rule from the Castle of the Crystal?”

“The peasants?” asks Aughra, a little contrary. “No.” But she softens and answers the girl’s real question. “No, nor the queens neither. The Castle was for the urSkeks, and the Skeksis after.” 

The idea of lords and ladies and maudras as monarchs came from the urSkeks and the Skeksis in the first place. Aughra has assumed, wrongly it seems, that the idea would disappear with them. But Jen has been raised by urRu, whose books held myriad concepts within them, including that of royalty, and Kira has been raised by Podlings, who remember the ways of the maudras. 

_Well, it won’t matter much if we never find any other Gelfling anyway._ Without anyone to rule over, these two can call themselves king or queen or peasant or whatever and it won’t matter one bit. But Aughra remembers the looks in their eyes as they spoke of queens and castles. 

Thra is healed. It seems, however, that the world will not fall back into its old ways, from before the urSkeks came to them. _Ah well_ , Aughra thinks, as the last of the beetles disappears behind the far side of the tree. _That was a foolish thought anyway._

******

HARD TO FORGET  
 _Aughra_  
 _some time after AoR_

The light of three suns bends into infinite angles and bounces in endless rainbowed arcs as it passes through the transparent walls of the Castle of the Crystal. 

The place is a work of beauty, Aughra cannot argue with that. A gift from the urSkeks, when they were newly arrived to Thra and filled with the arrogant assumption that they could bring something of wisdom to their place of exile. _Not quite fair._ Aughra thinks of the stars, and of how much more she knows of them now. 

But the urSkeks had brought other knowledge as well, knowledge of _hierarchy_ , and the Skeksis after them had translated _hierarchy_ into peasants and lords, rulers and the ruled. The Skeksis whispered these things into the ears of the Gelfling, until free-spirited bands of families calcified into clans, until wise old mothers who delivered babies and words of counsel fossilized into queens. 

The few Gelfling who have survived the slaughter, far from the Skeksis and the Castle of the Crystal, have done much over the many trine to shift back into the old ways, marrying across clan lines and turning to councils of elders for governance. And yet, when the Gelfling speak now of the two who have healed the Crystal, the words on their lips are _king_ and _queen_. 

_Where there are castles, there are castles to conquer._ The lessons of the urSkeks the Gelfling must forget, if they are ever to be truly free.

A stray beam of Great Sunlight refracts through the castle wall and bends into Aughra’s eye. A thing of beauty indeed. Alas.

Aughra raises her arms, breathes in once, then lowers her arms again. The walls of the Castle of the Crystal first creak, then groan, then shout as they tumble to the earth. Aughra breathes out.


	10. To Sea

******

TAKE IT FROM ME and SECOND THOUGHTS  
 _Tae, Ethri, Onica  
after AoR_

_Flashes of stars focused into still shots, a memory of the timekeeper calling the hour. The silhouette of a hooked figure ballooned in a great coat, and behind it the silhouette of ridge after ridge of hills rolling across the starlit sea._

The three women break the dreamfast. 

“Aughra’s Eye above the horizon at the dead of night,” says Ethri. 

“But no mention of the month or day or even the season,” says Onica.

Tae turns her face away from her friends and towards the horizon. Somewhere behind it, the distant island that her memory cannot pin down the location of. “I should have paid more attention to the maps,” she says. 

Another memory, one that each woman holds in her own mind, in slightly different variations: _Maps are tiresome. So many lines and angles and other mathematical complications. Gelfling needn’t trouble themselves with such matters. Leave yourselves to the wind in your hair as it fills the sails and the sun on your face as it dries the decks. Let the Lord Mariner guide you across the seas._

“It’s not your mistake alone Tae,” says Ethri. “It’s one the Sifa made over and over again for generations.”

“In retrospect, she really was very sketchy though.” Tae’s smile is wry but she still doesn’t quite meet Ethri’s eye.

“All right you two,” says Onica, the optimist always, “enough dwelling on the past. I have enough information to try at least. We’ll just have to try the Gelfling way.”

Onica lights her fires, tosses her powders, and the three join together, casting their far-dream to the sea, scouring the waves for ridge after ridge of rolling hills.

******

LUCK  
 _Kylan, Onica  
a few trine after AoR_

“It’s like what you do,” Onica says, handing him a torn piece of old sail taken from her boat. “You pass your intention into the charm, to bring fortune or to stave away tragedy, and the intention lives on in that object.”

Kylan is unsure. Over the past few trine, Onica has taught him about Sifan soothsaying, the use of dreamspace to see paths unbounded by the flow of time, and that makes perfect sense to him. But dream-stitching is for memories, not intentions, and Sifan charmwork still seems to him more superstition than dream-art. 

But he doesn’t want to insult his friend, and he’s perfectly willing to admit that there are some things that he may never understand. So he takes her suggestion and weaves the charm the only way he knows how. 

He concentrates, and moments later, not an intention but a memory—one of himself and Onica, each a few trine younger, watching Ha’rar appear on the river’s edge after a day of sailing up from Stone-in-the-Wood—is stitched into the piece of old sail.

Kylan offers the completed charm to Onica, and she accepts it with a smile. “See?” she said. “I told you that you could do it.”

“I’m not sure it’s right,” he says. “It’s a memory, of when we first arrived in Ha’rar.”

“It’s perfect,” she replies. “I’m sure it will bring me luck.”

With that, she hugs her friend and climbs onto the boat, lined with fresh sails for the long journey ahead, ready to sail off to parts unknown.

******

SURVIVING A STORM  
 _Gurjin  
about ten trine after AoR_

Unlike the crew of Sifa around him, Gurjin has only been sailing ten trine, instead of twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. But the storm doesn't rattle him.

Perched high in the mast, his face is slapped with wind and water, but his hands know the task sight unseen, and he manages to untangle the ropes and free the sail.

But with the wind at a frenzy, the ship leans over sharply before the crew can react. Gurjin's grip slips, and he only has a fraction of a second to kick himself off of the mast so that he will land in the sea instead of on deck.

Still, the smack of the sea knocks the wind out of him, and he sinks. He doesn't have to worry about drowning, but if he sinks too far, the pressure will kill him instead. He has no idea how far away the ship is now, and they are too far from the mainland for him to make it back without it.

The waves roil. He focuses on riding them, of expending the least amount of energy that will keep him from getting thrust too far into the depths.

And so he does not notice until he is thrust into the sand that the water has become shallower and shallower. 

The sky calms, and the sea. But Gurjin barely notices. He stands in disbelief in calm shallows. They've actually found what they'd been searching for all these years. _Land._


	11. Adapting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning for an eye injury in the first drabble, _Impromptu_. If you’d rather skip it, scroll down to the second drabble, _Secret Garden_.

******

IMPROMPTU  
 _Ethri, Naia  
about a month after AoR_

It was only one eye. As she had crawled away from the battle to tend to her wound, the eye that remained had seen enough broken and bent bodies of her fallen comrades that she counted herself fortunate, even as the dirt of the forest floor beneath her mingled with the blood dripping from her face.

Besides, now that the battle was over, Maudra Naia had insisted on healing the wounded flesh herself, despite all the other woman had been through that night, so there was little chance of infection, and what remained of her face would be saved. 

“I’m sorry I can’t do more, Ethri,” Naia said beneath the torchlight of the old inn at Stone-in-the-Wood. Ethri almost laughed thinking of earlier plans to meet Maudra Fara this very month, perhaps in this very spot, to discuss something as now-trivial as trade arrangements, before the entire world had slipped out from under them, and before Fara…

“It’s only one eye,” Ethri said with a shrug. 

“At least the socket is healed,” said Naia, her warm hand framing Ethri’s cheekbone and temple as she finished her examination. “You can decide what to do next—a patch, or a wooden one or we can sew the lid shut.”

This night had not gone as expected. This month had not gone as expected, nor had the one before that. But if there was one thing the Sifa knew, it was that life is as changeable as the sea—make all the plans you want, but life will rarely shift itself to meet them. It will splash itself wild in every which way—best just to ride it out.

Ethri reached for her sword, held it in front of her remaining eye, and examined the scabbard, lined with jewels that danced in the torchlight. “How about this one?” she asked, plucking off a large round emerald with her knife. She held it up to her face for size, and smirked.

Naia’s face shifted into a smile, and then into a snicker. The two young women, exhausted, battle-tried, barely stifled their giggles as they worked together to fix the gem into place. “How do I look?” Ethri asked, when they had completed their task.

“Like a Sifan maudra out of the legends,” said Naia. “Gem-eyed Ethri.”

“Has a nice ring to it,” Ethri said.

******

SECRET GARDEN  
 _skekSa  
some trine after AoR_

The garden had begun as a practical way to stave off monotony. They would never starve—urSan gathered fish and kelp easily enough. But while the same dish of boiled fish and kelp was enough to satisfy an urRu, a Skeksis craved variety. _SaSan had craved variety._ That’s what had gotten her into this mess all those two thousand trine ago.

And so she gathered samples and seeds from the wild plants of the island, resilient in the sand and briny seawater that occasionally washed above the shoreline into the yard of their rock-hewn home. Berries, leafy greens, even a short grain that was surprisingly sturdy. The thing about gardens, she realized, was that they were about control. And she liked being in control, even if her dominion was over mere plants. Much less changeable than Gelfling anyway.

Then the animals came, flyers and crawlers and creepers. And they too could be controlled, by manipulating the variety and number of this or that flower or fruit.  
The days passed into months and she reveled in her small domain of plant and beast, nary a wise brain among them to cause her trouble. 

It was not until the months passed into trine that she realized she no longer cared for their loyalty, but for their companionship. The realization crushed her at first. But as she watched the cycle of plants grow in and out over the trine, the cycle of beasts that wandered in and out of the garden, never quite predictable despite her best efforts, she realized that she had what SaSan had always craved. _Variety._

******

RAIN  
 _Deet, Rian  
several decades after AoR_

Deet had known _about_ rain of course. In songs it was an obstacle for the hero to bravely fight through, a backdrop in which tragic lovers shared a parting kiss. And there were the days when water dripped down through the cracks in the rock above Domrak, occasional trickling streams making their way through the small holes that led to the surface. 

None of that had prepared her for living her entire adult life in a swamp, where the rain did not trickle but poured, where the rain started one night under two full moons and did not stop again until the moons had waned into nothing and then waxed back to full.

And now, change had come again. The long rains had spread themselves further and further apart, and for the last ten trine, when they did come, they lasted a week at most. And she could barely remember the last time they had come. 

So she wasn’t surprised when Rian came back up from the watering hole with two empty barrels—barrels they used to call _rain_ barrels back when they had been able to collect whatever water they needed from the sky.

“No luck,” he said, placing the barrels down by the front door. “Nothing but mud.”

“Cheer up,” she said. “We’ll have to walk a little further to get it, but there’s still plenty of water in the swamp.”

“Less and less every trine,” he said, a hand to his lower back as he stood. He turned to her with the wry smile that always appeared whenever he was trying to fend off dark feelings. “It can’t all run out, can it?”

“If it does, we’ll just have to go somewhere else,” she said, taking his hand.

“Leave our home?”

“We’ve each done it once before. Just as long as we’re all together, we’ll be fine.”

“You’re right,” he said. 

As for the rest—that less rain here meant less rain everywhere, that sooner or later they would run out of places to go, that nowhere was safe forever—they left it unsaid. Deet picked up one of the barrels, Rian picked up the other, and they started the long walk down the low road towards the next village over.


	12. Uncommon Situations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had three drabbles lying around that were all a little non-typical so I decided to just lump them together this week. The first is a modern AU and probably the most normal. The second is the result of a challenge to create a scene featuring the combination of skekLi, Amri, Rian, and Aughra, and is, very suitably, entitled _Disaster_. And third may or may not be a bit of a (loving) rant in disguise. 
> 
> Anyhoo, apologies for this weird stuff. Will be back to normal, tragically-withered future Thra and whatnot next week ;)

******

RUNNING ON EMPTY  
 _Tavra, Onica, Kylan, Brea  
modern AU_

“I’m starving,” said Onica, throwing the house keys down on the counter and grabbing the nearest edible object, a carton of half-eaten popcorn. She tossed a few kernels into her mouth. “Mmm, just the right amount of stale.”

Tavra smiled warmly at her wife’s endearingly terrible eating habits, while vowing to find something in the kitchen that would make for a proper breakfast. They had, last night, on a whim, decided to ditch the last day of the convention, check out of their hotel room early, and ride the whole night across the length of the Crystal Desert. The sunsrise over the Claw Mountains had been breathtaking, but as they had sputtered into their driveway in Ha’rar in the early morning, the motorcycle was on its last ounce of gas, and its two Gelfling riders were running on empty too.

But there was no way Tavra was eating stale popcorn. She rooted through the refrigerator, but came up empty. Sometimes their tenant left neatly-labelled tupperware containers filled with delicious leftovers and a note to _Help Yourselves!_ but alas not today. 

Tavra’s fridge explorations were interrupted by a squeak of the front door. She looked up as said tenant entered with a tray filled with two coffees and what looked like various pastries. 

“Kylan!” said Onica, through a mouthful of popcorn.

Kylan froze, his eyes darting around the room, then back at the door, as if he were considering sneaking back out. “Uh, you’re home early,” he said at last. 

Tavra eyed the tray in his hand. _Why are there two cups?_ “Did you bring us coffee?” she asked.

Kylan paused for a moment before answering. “Yes?” he said. “Yes, I brought you coffee.” He removed one cup from the tray and placed it on the counter in front of Tavra. _Thank Thra I really need this,_ she thought.

“Kylan, have you seen my backpack?” Tavra stopped mid sip as her sister walked in from the bathroom. “I need my saline sol…”

“Brea, when did you get here?” Tavra asked. To her left, Onica choked on a piece of popcorn. Tavra patted her absentmindedly on the back as she sputtered.

Brea turned her eyes from her sister to Kylan. “What are we telling her?” she said.

“That I bought her coffee,” said Kylan, still frozen in place.

“Yes,” said Brea. “We bought you coffee.” She reached into the tray and placed the remaining cup in front of her sister as well. “Two coffees.”

“Oh,” said Tavra. “Well, I am pretty tired, I could use two…”

Onica finished coughing and transitioned into laugher. “Oh my Thra, Tavra. The coffee is not for you.” She handed one cup to Brea and the other to Kylan, then pushed them towards the door. “You two have a lovely breakfast on the porch. I’ll take care of this one,” she said, gesturing at Tavra.

Tavra was hungry, and sleep-deprived and, to be honest, very confused. And she _really_ needed that coffee. She sighed, picked up the remaining popcorn, shrugged, and began to crunch.

******

DISASTER  
 _skekLi, Amri, Rian and Aughra  
honestly it doesn’t really matter when_

“It’s so weird,” said one of the Gelfling, the annoying Grottan one who never stopped talking. “Like, I know, _abstractly_ , that you and urLii are the same person, but, like, on a _gut-level_ , I just don’t see the connection at all.”

 _Oh stars above, shut up_. “Stop mentioning that _person_ ,” skekLi rumbled in a low squawk. He hooked an arm onto the ladder leading back up to the deck of the ship. Wherever the leak was, he couldn’t find it in the hold, and the sooner he got up that ladder, the sooner he’d be out of earshot of the little pipsqueaks he held prisoner.

But no sooner had skekLi reached the top of the ladder when the Grottan raised his voice. It turned out that for such tiny creatures their voices could be awfully loud. _Curses. A gross miscalculation_. “I’m just saying,” said the irritating mote in the hold below, “that urLii would never do something like this.”

“UrLii wouldn’t do what?” asked the other Gelfling prisoner, the snide one who had spent an inordinate amount of time since his capture rebraiding his hair. “Capture two Gelfling, or try to sail a ship without knowing what he’s doing?”

“Both I would imagine,” said the Grottan. “I mean, for one I can’t imagine him bothering with the effort to do either when he could just hang out in the Tomb of Relics shifting through old junk.”

“We wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for a piece of old junk,” muttered the snide one. He raised his voice in the most intentional of manners and continued, “and I’m not clarifying whether I mean the ship or the Skeksis.”

SkekLi debated jumping overboard. He had never _swum_ before per se, but the shore wasn’t that far off, and how hard could it be? The longer he sat there listening to the prattling of the Gelfling, the more he was willing to take his chances. 

He was in the middle of raising a delicate foot to the railing when a shadowy figure appeared on shore. _Friend or foe?_ Well, it’s not like it mattered at this point. “You there!” he shouted. “A little help?”

The shadows coalesced into the the most grotesque shape on Thra. _The crone._ “Aughra doesn’t do boats,” she said, continuing her stroll along the shore.

The crone was not optimal. But she was the only option. And he knew just how to lure her. “I thought, however,” said skekLi, “that Aughra loved the Gelfling.” He reached down and grabbed the nearest prisoner by the hair and lifted him up in display. “I’ve got two.”

“Argh, I just fixed my _hair_ ,” said the Gelfling, struggling in skekLi’s grip. “Mother Aughra, please,” he said.

The crone sighed and began grumpily shoving a nearby log towards the water. “Doing this so the Skeksis doesn’t eat you, not because of the hair,” she mumbled.

Another Gelfling head peeked out of the hold. “Mother Aughra,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to meet you. You met all my friends, and I was kind of feeling left out. My name is Amri.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Loquacious Amri. Mother Aughra knows all her children.” Slowly, painfully so, she paddled the log in their direction. “I’m taking the Gelfling first,” she said. “Then I’ll come back for you. If I feel like it.”

SkekLi stood up to his ankles in seawater on a sinking ship with, quite frankly, the two most annoying Gelfling on Thra, forced to bargain for his life with an addled crone. _This mission is a disaster._

“You know what,” he said as the crone maneuvered the log beside the ship. “Take them.” He plopped the snide one onto the log, then picked up the Grottan and tossed him after his friend. “I’ll figure something else out.” 

The water was up to his waist and the crone and the two Gelfling were long gone by the time a new shadow waddled onto the shore, boarded the log, and paddled out to the sinking ship much more quickly than the crone had managed. Well, the extra arms helped.

“ _You_ ,” growled skekLi, “I refuse to be saved by _you_.”

UrLii raised a single eyebrow behind his ridiculous spectacles. _The annoying thing is, he would just sit there and bear it as we drowned here together._ SkekLi refused to let the smug placidity on that urRu’s face be the last thing he ever saw. Begrudgingly, he hopped onto the log, and let his better half paddle him to safety.

******

REPUTATION  
 _Kylan, Rian, Naia, Hup, Deet, also Gurjin, Brea, and Lore are there_  
 _during AoR_

The road to the Crystal Desert was long, and while the troop of six Gelfling, one Podling, and one giant rock-person was not yet worn-out enough to be called _bedraggled_ , they were certainly bordering on _weary_. So Kylan was relieved when Rian, falling naturally into the role of field commander, spoke up at last.

“All right,” said Rian. “Let’s camp here for the night. Kylan, you can cook, right? Why don't you make dinner?”

Kylan’s brow furrowed. _Weird_ , he thought. That was the third time that day that someone had brought up him and cooking. First Deet, casually trying to make conversation on the long march, had asked him about the best way to prepare vegetable stew, and then later Brea had inquired about the differences between traditional Spriton and Stonewood cuisine.

“Uh, I can make dinner,” said Kylan, ”but I’m not much of a cook.”

“Yeah," said Naia, “I remember one time when he was visiting Great Smerth and he tried to help me debone the fish for dinner. Honestly, by the time he was done, it looked like a mackerel had exploded on the plate. And that's not to mention the part where he set the wild nebrie pie on fire.”

“Okay, listen,” Kylan said. “It’s not my fault. Songtellers usually perform right after the evening meal, so we’re too busy practicing to help with the cooking. I guess when I was little Maudra Mera made me peel vegetables, so I can do that okay?”

“Huh,” said Deet. “I just assumed you could cook. Everyone always mentions that you made broth that one time.”

 _Really? That’s what motivated this? One pot of broth?_ “I don’t know, I knew you guys would be hungry when you got back from your athletic carriage rescue adventure, and broth is the one thing I know how to make. Not that hard, really, since we already had a bouillon cube. Just toss it into some boiling water, find a few herbs lying around, and there you go. It’s like, literally the easiest thing you can make.”

“I'm honestly a little surprised you didn’t manage to set the broth on fire,” said Naia.

Rian laughed. “Really? Oh, sorry, man, I just assumed that, like, cooking was your thing.”

Kylan kept a neutral smile on his face. _My job description is literally songteller, not cook, but okay._ Well, they were all still getting to know each other. 

“For the record,” Kylan began, “I can read and write, and dream-etch, and dream-stitch, and of course I'm a songteller, and all that entails, with the music and memorizing hundreds of stories and everything.” He shrugged. “Oh, and I can make shoes? So if any of you need shoes… I guess with learning how to do all that other stuff, I never really had time to learn how to cook.”

Before anyone could respond, Hup began rifling through their rations pack while letting out a long string of Podling. Kylan translated. “Hup says that he was a professional chef and no one ever bothers to ask him to cook.”

Rian’s voice was flat with disbelief. “Hup, _you_ were a professional chef?” 

“ _Ye_ ,” Hup replied, unleashing another string of Podling while waving his spoon around slowly in front of Rian’s face. 

“He says why do you think he has a sp…”

“I got the meaning,” said Rian. He sighed, and then blinked, barely managing to catch the bag of vegetables that Hup threw at him.

“Peel,” Hup said. Rian sighed again, then sat down next to Hup and dutifully set to work.

“Well, I think we all learned an important lesson about making assumptions today,” said Deet, lifting a rather large tree branch and carrying it over to the wood pile.

Kylan smiled and took out his firca, ready to provide some accompaniment as the others went about preparing the camp. They still had a lot to learn about each other. But he had a feeling that sitting around a campfire with a good meal would help everyone to open up. He was ready to listen and understand each of their stories. He was good at that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to state for the record that for everyone who likes to pair Kylan with broth, I see you and respect you, and your Kylan/broth ship is totally valid. And I’m even a giant hypocrite who made him a good cook in the first drabble despite the third. But he's good at so many other things too ;)
> 
> Also, shoutout in the second drabble to Rian for taking the time to redo his hair in the middle of the woods while on lam from the castle during the show. A+ priorities.


End file.
